Sally Purcell

Sally Purcell
Sally Purcell
Born	1 December 1944 Aston Fields, Worcestershire, England
Died	4 January 1998 Oxford
Occupation	Poet, writer, researcher, translator
Nationality	British

Sally Purcell (1 December 1944 – 4 January 1998) was a British poet and translator. She produced several English translations of poetry and literary works, including the first English translation of Hélène Cixous's The Exile of James Joyce or the Art of Replacement,^[1] and published at least six volumes of her own poetry.

Biography

Born in

Her own poetry was regarded by some of her contemporaries at least as of outstanding importance, precisely because it stood apart from the realism of the late twentieth century. There was a strange blend of influences from folklore, the Classics and modern French. There is a surreal Arthurian streak to much of Purcell's work, which may owe something of its beginning to another Oxford poet with a scholarly background, Charles Williams, though she always retains a strong individuality. The style was notably more lyrical and sonorous than many of her contemporaries, though it used an increasingly spare free verse, which was well described in a review of her last volume Fossil Unicorn (by Douglas Clark in Lynx): "Sally Purcell writes brilliant snowflakes of poems. Her sharp crystal language is perfect for the short gasp of her work."^[citation needed] Her books appeared from the early seventies till her death in 1998, in several cases from Peter Jay's Anvil Press. Her main volumes are The Holly Queen (1971), Dark of Day (1977), Lake and Labyrinth (Taxvs, 1985) and "Fossil Unicorn" (1997). Her Collected Poems, edited by Peter Jay with a foreword by Marina Warner appeared posthumously in 2002 from Anvil Press.

Bibliography

Poetry

• Provençal Poems, Oxford: Carcanet Press, 1969.
  OCLC 198738
• The Holly Queen, London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1971 (edited by Peter Jay; preface by
  OCLC 12889401
• Dark of Day, London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1977.
  OCLC 4193074
• By The Clear Fountain, Bath: Mammon Press, 1980.
  OCLC 7621933
• Guenever and the Looking Glass, London: Greville Press, 1984
• Lake and Labyrinth, London: Taxvs, 1985.
  OCLC 13360366
• Fossil Unicorn. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1997.
  OCLC 38240654
• Collected Poems. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2002.
  OCLC 248238868

• Amorgos, by Nikos Gatsos, translated from the Greek by Sally Purcell. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2000

Literary Translations

• The Early Italian Poets, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, translated from the Italian by Sally Purcell. University of California Press, 1982
• The Exile of James Joyce or the Art of Replacement, Translation of L'exil de Joyce ou l'art du remplacement by Hélène Cixous. Translated from the French by Sally Purcell. New York: David Lewis, 1980.

References